Skills Platform launches second Charity Digital Skills Report

It hopes to assess progress in the sector since last year's inaugural publication

The second Charity Digital Skills Report has been launched by the Skills Platform, which hopes to see progress from the sector in the wake of last year’s "worrying" report that showed half of the charities surveyed did not have a digital strategy.

According to the Skills Platform, apart from revealing the lack of digital strategies among charities, the inaugural report showed that most were working to improve their culture and just over a quarter of charities had aligned their digital and organisational strategies. The survey drew responses from more than 500 charity professionals.

This year, the Skills Platform is following up on the 2017 report with three key aims: to assess progress and changes in the sector since the 2017 report; to allow individual charities to reflect on changes they have made over the past 12 months; and to allow charities to benchmark themselves against sector averages. In addition, the 2018 report has added a section that covers health charities and hospices in greater depth.

Dave Evans, product manager at Skills Platform, said: "The vast majority of charities think that growing digital skills will help to improve fundraising and deliver their strategies more effectively. This is encouraging, yet digital is often pushed down the priority list, with half of all charities not developing digital strategies.

"We know that the charity sector is doing amazing work and is leading other sectors in some areas, so we hope the 2018 survey will show the progress being made in the sector and help add to the momentum we've seen build over the past year."

Responses to the report, which can be accessed here, must be received by midnight on 16 February and the results will be announced on 14 March.

Expert Hub

When a property is being constructed, VAT is charged at the standard rate. But if you're a charity, health body, educational institution, housing association or finance house, the work may well fall into a category that justifies zero-rating - and you could make a massive saving